Influencers increased engagement 23%

For the past year, American Express has experimented with turning over its social accounts to influencers for short bursts of time to pick up followers and buzz. And it appears to be working—at least based on some results from a recent two-week Instagram campaign.

On Nov. 9, AmEx gave six Instagrammers the keys to its account as part of the #MyAmex campaign. The posts were created by graphic designer Ann Kim, chef Christina Tosi, Patrick Janelle (who won the CFDA's first-ever Fashion Instagrammer of the Year award this year), fashion designers Oleema and Kalani Miller, Team Epiphany managing partner Coltrane Curtis and designer Timo Weiland.

The group posted a series of pictures (see examples below) depicting how AmEx impacts their businesses.

According to AmEx, the #MyAmex posts generated 23 percent more engagement than the brand's other Instagram pictures. AmEx also doubled its average number of daily Instagram followers for two weeks. In total, the campaign generated more than 10 million impressions and 40,000 engagements.

The social takeover followed another campaign from earlier this year that told the story of a fictional card member named CF Frost. The character was based on Charles F. Frost, an ad executive who worked at Ogilvy & Mather in the 1960's and has been prominently featured in AmEx ads since.

"In this case we decided, Why not have our card members tell the story themselves?" said Mona Hamouly, vp of social media communications at AmEx. "So, we thought about people who have really interesting walks of life who have an affinity for the brand."

This was the first year that the brand turned to influencers to churn out social content, according to Hamouly. Artists such as Andy Hau and Supermundane created Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Vine posts this summer, and during New York Fashion Week, fashion bloggers posted sketches on the brand's social accounts.